Legend of Zelda: Queen of Shadows
by Solynna
Summary: Ganondorf has returned, but the Hero of Time cannot. The people pray to the Goddesses for salvation, but only Zelda, Sheikah Warrior-Princess, can deliver it. Now featuring Zelda as Sheik, and the Goddess Din as an unhelpful fairy companion! Set during Ganon's return prior to the Great Flood as seen in the opening of Wind Waker.
1. Premonition

_Premonition_

I spent so much time in my grandmother's room as a child I could probably recite the names of half the books on her shelves. She had half a library's worth in there, after being bedridden with illness for so long. The room was later cleaned out and repurposed, and I've avoided it ever since. Still, it's hard to forget after…

"But… but what's going to happen to you?"

Her voice was feeble, but it was strong enough for goodbyes. Mine was not.

"I don't know," she said. "No one knows."

"I don't want you to…"

Die.

She rested her soft hands on my little ones, balled up tightly in her blankets. "I don't want to go either. I'll miss you most of all. I've been crying every night lately because I know I won't be able to see you again."

"But you never cry," I said.

"Yes, I do. I cried when your mother died. I cry whenever I think about her."

My mother, the late queen, her daughter-in-law. I was too young to remember.

"Sometimes I cry because I know other people are sad. And I cry for my old friends, even many years later." She pried my hands open and held them gently. "It's good to cry, as much as you want, as long as you want. Everyone feels sadness."

I wondered sometimes why she encouraged me to cry. Eventually I realized it was so that I wouldn't feel weak because I was still crying years later.

The door clicked softly as my father entered. He squeezed my shoulders in reassurance.

"What will I do?" I asked.

My grandmother smiled. "Why don't you go get the lyre I gave you? I would like to hear how much better you've gotten."

"You'll still be here when I get back?"

"Of course."

I rushed through the castle halls with an urgency I don't think I've ever felt since. My father must have said his goodbyes while I fetched the lyre, for there was no time for them afterward.

When I returned he helped me up onto the bed. I did not ask what song my grandmother wanted because I already knew. The notes came out wrong – I shook too much to play it properly.

"Remember what I taught you," she said.

I breathed in deeply, trying to clear my thoughts. She had trained me to shut out my emotions, to think only about physical sensations – the feeling of my nightgown, of the blankets, the weight of my body, my eyelids falling over my burning eyes, tears sliding down my cheeks, my heartbeat, the rhythm of my breathing, the cool air rushing in and out, the tension in my arms, the wood and the gold of the ancient lyre, the resistance of the strings, and finally the unique sound of each individual note of the centuries-old lullaby.

When I finished playing my father was halfway through a prayer.

I hadn't even noticed when my grandmother died.

She left me an envelope I was not allowed to open until I turned seventeen. It contained three items. The first was a partial genealogy, a single branch of my family tree, tracing my ancestry back to one specific woman ten generations ago. The second was a message from that woman, very faded, in old language I struggled to read. Lastly there was a copy of that message, translated by my great-great-grandmother into a more recognizable form of Hylian. The author called herself "Anselma Ylixandrin Zelda, Sage of Time, Sheikah Warrior-Queen of Restored Hyrule and Her Dependent Territories."

It was quite strange to read a centuries-old legend as a first-person account. She chronicled the fall of Old Hyrule to the usurper Ganondorf, his defeat seven years later by the mythical figure known as the Hero of Time, the nature of the Triforce, and how the Triforce of Wisdom had been passed down through my bloodline, generation after generation, to me.

I don't know why I'm thinking about this now. It's just…

She said that Ganondorf would return.


	2. Dark Ice

_Dark Ice_

When I wake up in the middle of the night dry heaving I somehow suspect this will be a terrible day for me. I feel like I'm underwater, heavy and slow, eyes burning. A hundred tons of headache threatens to slice its way out of my skull. As I curl up tighter among three layers of lush, silk blankets I wonder if that cracking feeling is my bones or a layer of ice stuck in all my joints. Castle Town is never this cold, at any time of night, in any season. What time is –

By the Golden Goddesses, what in the Sacred Realm is _that?_

I stumble out of bed, blankets dragging across the floor as I inattentively try to slide out of them. My window is barred. Bars of opaque, black ice – magic, I note, as their touch burns my fingers. Outside, the sky appears to be _frozen solid._ Intense storm clouds stilled in the most impossible swirls of violet, blue, black, gray, gold, and green – a multicolored, apocalyptic hurricane as motionless as a painting. And whoever painted it, I think, must have been born in an insane asylum with no windows, where he lives to this day painting things he has never seen, as described by the voices in his head. There is no movement, no wind. My bedroom door is locked, _from the outside._ I neither hear nor feel my numbed fist striking the wood. No one answers my calls for help.

No one is coming to my aid.

"No one is coming to help me," I repeat slowly. I give myself a moment to let it sink in.

I take my grandmother's lyre off the nightstand. It is Sheikah custom to meditate every morning and night, and before every battle, when conditions allow. It helps us maintain our focus and our discipline. I sit cross-legged on my bed, and on the lyre I play her favorite lullaby, slowly allowing my attention to drift away from the task ahead and into the present moment. I focus on the body of the lyre, the feel of the strings, the movement and the tension in my fingers, the shiver running through my arms into my shoulders. I focus on each individual note, easy to pick out when the environment returns no echo. It's a simple exercise, but I finish a minute or two later assured that my mind and body are in tune.

I feel refreshed. It's time to fight.

From under the pile of pillows beside me I pull out two swords in black, wooden sheathes. The first is long, single-edged, and curved slightly in the Sheikah style. The second sword is much shorter, basically a long dagger used to parry attacks. I unsheathe them to check the blades. Ice cold, and still as perfectly sharp as ever. After maintaining these for years it feels bizarre to actually use them for anything.

When I check under the bed for the trunk containing the rest of my gear I find something peculiar with it – a floating ball of bright orange, silent, smokeless flame the size of my fist, just sort of smoldering without burning, like the coals of a dying fire. Still chilled to the bone and not sure what else to do with it, I try to warm my hands around it, but it isn't giving off any heat. Carefully, I prod it to be sure, and it sticks, stretching like paste as I pull away. I feel a relaxed warmth in my finger as the flame sinks into my skin, slowly dissolving its shape. It runs the length of my arm, into my heart, up and down my spine. I breathe deeply at the feeling of the fire spreading all the way through my body to burn away some of the ache and the cold. My senses feel sharper. I should find more of these.

I take out the trunk with the rest of my equipment and unpack it on top of my bed. To my two swords I add a set of throwing knives, a utility knife, garrote wire, a rope and grappling hook, a first aid kit, a giant's wallet full of rupees, and a large satchel with several changes of clothes. Yesterday there were six glass bottles full of red potion, but it has somehow turned to rancid, brown glop oozing out from under the corks. I don't think I should even try to reuse the bottles. A shame. A glass bottle can be the difference between life and death, and I'm reluctant to head into danger less than fully prepared. "Equipment is key," my instructors would say, "You can't just march into an enemy's stronghold and expect to find the very weapon you need in an unlocked chest."

I wrap my hair into a headscarf and change into a set of light underclothes made for comfort under a full suit of chainmail. I prefer to hide my advantages from my enemies, so I cover the chainmail with an assortment of blue-gray cloth and leather armor, and a faded tabard bearing the Sheikah red eye and tear insignia. A plain, gray scarf and a black traveling cloak conceal my face. All of it together should be enough to protect my body and my identity.

I ready my sword to crack the bars in the window, but oddly enough they start to sizzle as I get close. I hold my hands as close to them as I can without touching, and watch as they slowly sublime off into a black gas and disappear. Peculiar.

The window takes me out onto the palace roof for a better view of my environment. A dull light covers the terrain, as bright perhaps as an overcast sunrise. The dark clouds reach as far as I can see in every direction. During the Hylian Restoration after Ganondorf's fall, Hyrule Castle was rebuilt atop a rocky island in a great lake at the mouth of a river. The only ways out are the lakeside docks and the bridge to the countryside. From here I can tell the cliffs, treacherous on a clear day, are covered in the dark ice. The Great Hall looks to be iced over as well, making the bridge inaccessible. The whole castle is silent and empty, all of the torches doused. The soldiers, Sheikah, court officials, and staff number in the hundreds – where are they? I need to search for survivors. Of what, exactly, I'm not sure.

Suddenly more than my breath disturbs the air. Two pillars of light shoot up into the sky, piercing the clouds like a white hot lance, burning holes through the dark veil. Through the gaps I see the stars, and it comforts me to know that whatever alien sky this is, the Golden Goddesses can still see me under it. The pillars of light originate within the castle grounds: one in the barracks, one on the northern battery. The barracks is the nearer, just across the courtyard. The low roof of the servants' quarters gives me an easy path to the ground.

On the ground I scan the courtyard once more. No sign of an ambush. I draw my longsword and slip inside the servants' quarters, searching the rooms one by one, slowly and deliberately, careful of any threat that might hide around a corner. No one is here. That there are no corpses could be good… or it could be _very_ bad.

On my way out I search the pantry. All of it is rotten – food that can last months has turned to ash in sealed jars. Whatever is going on, I'll have to put an end to it before hunger sets in. I head back outside.

The barracks, too, is empty, of its occupants at least. In one of the dormitories, sparse and empty of luxury except two tiers of empty, wooden bunks attached to the stone walls, I find the next magic flame. It hovers at the far end of the room, above a thick sheet of dark ice that covers the whole floor. With my guard up and my free hand ready to draw shortsword or throwing knife, I step cautiously onto the ice. Starting at the back of the room it starts evaporating in a cascade of thick smoke coalescing into a dense cloud, then shooting away and re-solidifying into the black, icy forms of twelve armored soldiers. I recognize one. I was there for his initiation into the Sheikah, where he swore to uphold the Royal Family – now he is charging me, trying to scream without a voice, ready to claw me to death with his bare hands. I put a throwing knife in his gut, and while this would normally make a man keel over and scream himself hoarse, he closes the distance with smoke gushing from the wound, grabs my arm, and bites. His teeth can't break the leather and chainmail protecting me, but with one arm tied up I only have my longsword to fend off the other eleven attackers. They, too, ignore the deep cuts I give them as I move to keep the young Sheikah in front of me like a shield. They're biting my arms and legs, clawing at my eyes, trying to drag me to the ground. I stumble backward into a wall, sword arm raised just to shield my face.

I have no choice.

I take the young Sheikah's head off. He is evaporated before he hits the ground. Both arms free, I draw my shortsword and behead the rest of them two at a time as they scramble toward me through the smoky remains of their comrade.

I take the magic flame and run in case they can reform again or worse, the rest of the barracks comes for me. Once outside I slam the door shut and brace myself against it, quickly scanning the courtyard for threats. I wait. I press my ear to the door. I wait.

Nothing. I'm safe.

Maybe… maybe if I can undo the dark magic, those men will come back to life? Maybe those were just illusions made to look like soldiers.

I…

They each took an oath that they would give their lives to protect me.

I just… held them to it.

I look up to the heavens for guidance. The next pillar of light shines just as before. I pull the hood of my cloak up so that my goddesses might not see the shame on my face, and I head for the northern battery.

The wall that runs alongside the path is covered in dark ice. On it is an engraving of two old women standing vigil over a young lady in fine silk robes asleep with a newborn in her arms. Above them a dragon with a shimmering orb in its mouth appears to be – it's hard to tell, carved in black – shining a light down on them. The lady is Gerudo, the elders might be midwives, but the dragon? It's not something I'm familiar with. The Gerudo, I know, can only give birth to girls, except for a single male every century destined to be their king. Their last king died young only a few months ago. The carvings continue: a boy slaying a desert beast, a young man taking the throne, a ruler hearing the counsel of the two old women who observed his birth, a warrior-king cleansing himself in the blessed waters of a desert temple, and then… the Sacred Realm? He's kneeling before a woman made of fire, who reaches out to give him a triangular golden plate. I fear I may have acquired a very powerful enemy indeed.

The carvings continue for a while, but I don't care to read the rest. I'm at the northern battery.

The battery is a wide, circular space overlooking the lake. Dark ice forms a ring all around it. As I approach, the pillar of light fades, revealing the magic flame floating in the center. I step inside the icy circle.

The ice evaporates and reforms into tall bars forming a cage around the battery and preventing escape, and into the blackened form of a knight I recognize: Ashei. After the death of her father, a respected knight, we offered to adopt her into the Sheikah, but she declined. She roots herself between me and the magic flame, and raises her icy sword and shield.

I try to rush past her to the flame, but she keeps her body and her blade in my way. I'll have to at least disarm her. I think back to the last time I observed a military training session. Knights are trained specifically against a dozen combat styles common among Hylians, Gerudo, Zora, and Goron, but they aren't taught Sheikah techniques at all. I draw my dagger and change my stance, left foot and off-hand forward, sword arm back. I hold my dagger in reverse grip, my thumb at the end of the hilt, blade pointing to the ground. It's a defensive stance, but it's unfamiliar to her. She waits for me to make the first move. I strike low, at her knee, a feint. She blocks with her shield, and counters with a strong, overhead slash. I gently deflect it to the side with my dagger, letting the momentum of her swing throw her off balance, and follow through by elbowing her in the head and trying again to get around her to the flame. She makes a desperate pirouette of a slice that forces me to hit the ground. I'm able to parry her next few attacks as I get back on my feet, and when I find an opening I wrap my sword arm around hers to pin down her only means of attack. She breaks my nose with her shield. Dagger in hand, I deliver a left hook that slices her face open, spewing smoke into her eyes. She grabs my dagger and wrestles it away from me. I take her by her frosted hair, force her to the ground, and slam her head into the stone. I think that cracking noise is her jaw. If she can feel pain in this state, she is feeling a lot of it. It's the way of a ruler to be merciful, but the way of the Sheikah to be pragmatic. I pry her sword from her limp hand and hurl it into the lake.

As I reach for the flame she tackles me and I lose my grip on my sword. I block with my hands as she blindly attacks me with my own dagger. I grab it by the blade, letting it scratch futilely against my chainmail, pull a throwing knife, jam it into her wrist, and throw her off me.

She doesn't get up this time. I take the flame.


	3. Goddess of Golden Fire

_Author's note: In the games the Sacred Realm is a blank white void that is sometimes a parallel universe of Hyrule. That's inadequate for the story I want to write. For purposes of this story the "Sacred Realm" is what Hylians call outer space. If you read the first scene with Din and you don't like the idea, you may voice your concerns in a review._

* * *

_Goddess of Golden Fire_

The sky… A violent, orange star blazing outward through the black in spectral ribbons immense enough, for all I know, to engulf a hundred Hyrules stacked atop each other. My feet sink into the ashen soil of a tortured world bleeding a scorching haze from deep craters and vast mountains that amount to nothing more than the blisters of a solar lash. What divine mercy shields me from the blinding light and lethal heat of this celestial taskmaster's flaming whip? In answer, three flames pour out from my body, briefly circle each other, and combine and expand into the slender shape of a woman, her body golden fire, her wild hair and shining eyes burning ruby red. I fall to my knees.

Din. Goddess of Power.

She tilts her head with curious apprehension. "Why do you mortals bow and kneel and pray?"

What? "Because I seek guidance from one whose majesty far exceeds my own," I rasp. "I wish to honor my debt to my Creators."

"This star owes me a debt of creation, too, but it does not bend on its axis when I approach."

"But stars do not have free will to –"

"Neither do you," she snaps impatiently, as if she's already sick of the conversation.

I… What did I do to offend? She doesn't want genuflection? I stand. "How may I serve?"

"The one known as Ganondorf has escaped the Sacred Realm. He will come for you, and he will kill you." She shrugs. "I don't much care, but my Sisters have intervened on your behalf. I shall grant you some of my Power, and more if you earn it. Furthermore, from now until Ganon's defeat I will be traveling with you."

I'd prefer not to second-guess a Goddess's design, but, "Can't you kill him yourself?"

"Yes. But I will not."

"And yet you will grant me the power to defeat him?"

"Do not waste time questioning me," she says harshly. "Your lifespan is too short for it."

"What sort of power?"

"The greatest power you can imagine." She narrows her eyes, staring at me with curious anticipation.

She's asking me? The greatest power is… to slay any foe, to protect any ally, or maybe, "To command the unyielding loyalty of everyone."

Her flames crackle like the clicking of a tongue as her curiosity turns to disappointment. "Bearer of Wisdom indeed. That is a self-centered answer – loyalty is power for a Queen. What percentage of the Sacred Realm do you think is made of Queens?"

"It is power for anyone."

Her body flares white with anger. "Did you not hear me? What does loyalty mean to, say, a star?" She slowly begins to circle me like a prowling beast waiting to strike, charring her footprints into the dirt. "The star above us releases so much energy every second that, within its core, vapor turns to diamond turns to iron. The minutest fraction of that power is enough to ravage this planet. If its full power exploded all at once the heat would annihilate this world a trillion trillion times over, turn it to ash, turn the ash to gold. As you shelter yourself with your steel and your lyre, every molecule of you is a remnant of a dead star."

I eye her over my shoulder.

"And yet," she says, "There are things in the Sacred Realm that drink stars, that bend light, space, and time in their heavy grips. Whole galaxies of hundreds of billions of stars can only follow in their wake." I can feel the lick of the fire against my back, more like a salve than a burn, as from behind me she leans over my shoulder to hiss very clearly in my ear, "There exist in the Sacred Realm powers on a scale far beyond anything that you have ever imagined." She holds her hand out in front of me in demonstration, as a thin spout of ash snakes upward from the ground into her fist. "Perhaps with my magic you could achieve such things," she whispers, releasing a pinch of gold dust.

I don't understand. What is she suggesting? That I could tear apart a galaxy?

"If there is such a thing as power beyond comprehension…"

"Then," I answer, "Comprehension is the limit of power. I have no true limit – it exists only within my mind."

She nods. "And what is the truth of Power?"

"That there is always more."

She laughs pridefully, and the Sacred Realm is gone.

I am outside the Great Hall. Every surface of it – the walls, the windows, the roof – is iced over. The tall, wooden entry doors are held shut by icy chains and a massive, icy lock.

A ball of fire like an orange seeps out of my chest and sprouts glittering, insect wings. A fairy. "I will be taking this form," says Din. "Let us begin with simple magic for now. Draw your sword."

Though I had lost it fighting Ashei I am not surprised to find it on my belt.

"Do you feel the fire within you?"

I tighten my grip on my sword. "I do."

"Let it dance within the blade."

I focus on the warmth that I feel. I think of nothing but the physical sensation: my muscles relaxed, the tingling feeling running along my spine, into my shoulders, the hairs on my arms standing on end, heat flowing from my fingertips into chain, leather, the wooden hilt, the blade. My sword lights up as if left in a forge.

I drive it deep to shatter the lock, crack the doors, and scorch the chains to nothing. I raise my sword again, and throw the doors open.

The Great Hall is a wide, open gathering space, with balconies supported by marble columns running down either side of the room. On the steps below me is a great statue of the Hero of Time raising the Master Sword aloft. A hooded figure, taller than any man alive, in a black cloak trimmed with ermine observes it from its base. I march down the stairs to him with Din in tow. He looks up at me with lamenting, amber eyes as his fingers claw eight deep gashes down his ghostly white face. Like everything else in this place he screams silently.

I leap at the sound of his voice, deep and calm, while his face remains frozen in its agonized scream. "I did not expect anyone to break my spell." He thrusts his fist out from under his cloak, despite his pale hands still tearing into his face, and displays a glowing image of the Triforce of Power on the back of his hand. "What deity has offered you her patronage?"

I find no words to respond.

He pushes the cloak back to reveal his body, massive and muscular, all black ice, covered in polished, steel plate and lacquered, brown leather. His breastplate has forged into it the shape of two arms held close to the chest, reaching upward under the collar of the cloak. The white face and the hands clawing it are a mask.

"Do you know who I am?" he asks. "I am the true king of Hyrule. I am Gan-"

A throwing knife embeds itself in his eye. I suspect I'll find time to appreciate the sound of his pained roar someday, but now I have to capitalize. The momentum of my sprint transfers easily to a powerful lunge, my sword blazing toward his hunched-over, pain-wracked form.

He deflects my attack easily with his armored forearm, and his hand is around my throat before I can move. He lifts me up eye to eye, the gushing smoke from his wound freezing around the knife and shattering it. He stares me down, one eye blackened and iced over. I'm trying to find a foothold at the top of his greaves. I'm chipping at his wrist with my dagger. I'm fumbling my sword, making shallow gashes as he tries to break my neck with one hand. When he decides he's sick of paper cuts he throws me to the floor –

* * *

Did I black out?

"…long ago…"

He's talking.

"…that I would make her descendents…"

Drawing smoke from his wounds.

"…opportunity to fulfill…"

A barbed, icy spear raised high…

…and into my arm. I scream until I'm gasping for air, spasming and writhing, arching my back, bashing my head into the floor. I think it's pressing directly on my nerves! My fingers, thank Nayru I can still feel my fingers.

He pulls it upward ever so slightly, lifting me off the ground and letting my weight pull the barbs through my flesh. He laughs at the pathetic noise I make. I try to get up on my elbows to relieve the tension, but he kicks me back into the floor and holds me under his boot as he slowly, slowly, twist and pulls the spear – not enough to pull it out, just enough to leave me in blinding agony.

Where is Din? Why isn't she helping me?

She flies up in Ganon's face, and mercifully he relaxes his grip on the spear as he stares at her in confusion. "I teach you to control fire," she says to me derisively, "and you can't kill a man made of ice!"

And to think I've prayed to her for compassion all my life. I take it all back.

I take hold of his spear where it enters my forearm and channel magic fire until it evaporates. I leave the barbed head in, for it may be the only thing keeping my left arm attached.

"Blasted fairies!" says Ganon as he swings the remains of his spear at Din. She dodges.

I'm dizzy, lightheaded, and concussed, but I manage to get back on my feet.

Ganon laughs. "Your energy pleases me. Perhaps we should put it to better use."

I send a fiery throwing knife through his ankle, shattering it. He falls to one knee.

"Enough of this," he growls, rising from the floor and floating through the air by magic.

I reach for another throwing knife, but Din lands on my shoulder. "Why throw a knife?" she asks. "Why not throw fire?"

Ganon raises his hand, gathering a ball of dark energy, and hurls it at me. I leap out of its path and, following his example, throw a ball of fire back at him. He deflects it with the shaft of his spear, which shatters and disappears.

"You can't just throw it _straight_ at him!" shouts Din. "It's too predictable!"

I throw another fireball, this time willing it to fly in a curved trajectory, but I overdo it and it scorches the wall. I take a burst of dark energy to the chest and crumple to the floor. I scramble to cover behind a column before his next attack. I throw another fireball, which he tries to bat away with his arm, but I curve it downward at the last second to hit him in the gut, blasting pieces out of his icy body.

My next attack he reflects back at me. I catch it and throw it back. It splits his mask and scorches his face.

Back and forth.

He blows apart the column I'm using for cover, a piece of debris bashing me in the ribs.

Back and forth.

I turn one of his arms to splinters.

Back and forth.

I shatter his breastplate.

Back and forth.

I melt off half his face.

He sways, scorched and smoking, and falls out of the air. His body shatters.

Din flits over to investigate. "Nothing left. Not bad for a first attempt."

"First attempt?" I ask offhandedly as I search for my sword. "He's dead, isn't he?"

"No. This was just a phantom. A poor imitation. The real one yet lives."

I suppose an easy victory was too much to hope for. Pain bursts from my cracked ribs as I bend down for my sword. I have difficulty sheathing it without the use of my left arm. That blow to the head was quite severe as well – I remove the scarf covering my face in case nausea gets the better of me. At least I can walk, if not entirely straight.

I step out onto the bridge. At the end of it is open countryside, all under skies of dark magic. The nearest town is a few miles down the trail. I can only hope its inhabitants have not been corrupted.

Ganondorf lives, his spell over the castle has not lifted – there is nothing left for me here.


End file.
